More Cowbell

More Cowbell is the rowdier sibling to JEM. Same shuttle, same general direction off the Hurricane Cliffs rim, but a steeper grade, more rock features, and tighter turns. The trail starts off Goulds at the top of the cliffs, drops into a series of rock-garden sections, and connects back to JEM lower for the river finish. It is the trail riders run when JEM has stopped surprising them.

The technical step up

JEM is fast and flowy. More Cowbell is fast, flowy, and then suddenly a rock garden. The named features include a rocky chute about a mile in that requires either commitment or a clean walk-around, and a series of slabs further down that reward a tire pressure dropped a few PSI for the day. None of it is double-black; all of it is harder than JEM. Riders who clean JEM and want to know what’s next ride More Cowbell second.

How it stacks into the network

The standard Hurricane Cliffs upgrade-day looks like Hurricane Rim climbed, Goulds across, More Cowbell down to the JEM lower, and JEM lower to the river. That swap turns a 16-mile JEM loop into a slightly shorter, considerably more technical day. Adding Dead Ringer brings it back to full network length and stacks the two harder descents in sequence.

When to skip it

More Cowbell, like the rest of the Hurricane Cliffs system, holds water. After a wet weather window the rocky sections turn slick on the descent and the lower clay sections build up on tires. Over the Edge Sports posts conditions specific enough to call out More Cowbell when it’s the trail to skip; check before you shuttle.

Where More Cowbell sits in the 435

The Hurricane Cliffs trails have grown over the last decade from one trail (JEM) to a network of half a dozen, and More Cowbell is the trail that pushed the technical end of that network. Riders who treat Hurricane Cliffs as a JEM-only destination are missing the half of the network that built the area’s reputation among more advanced riders.